News Corp. - If You de-Index Will They Still Come? — Two weeks ago we posted on Rupert Murdoch's threat to block Google from Indexing News Corp. content. While at first it seemed as though Murdoch was merely posturing with hypotheticals, reports continue to indicate that News Corp …

Core i7 iMacs showing up DOA — including ours — Apple's new Core i7-based iMac might be a performance monster, but it looks like the whole family's having some problems getting out of the gate: in addition to the previously-noted performance issues with the Core 2 Duo models …

Facebook Creates Dual-Class Stock Structure — Facebook Inc. has established a dual class stock structure, a move that helps lay the groundwork for an eventual initial public offering. — The company is in the process of converting all current shareholders to Class B stock …

Millions using social media on Xbox Live — Microsoft on Monday said that millions of Xbox Live members have used the new social-media features that the company pushed live a week ago. — In June, Microsoft announced it would begin offering Xbox Live users access to Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm.

New search ad formats — At Google, we're committed to giving you the information you want — regardless of the form in which it might appear. — Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information. For example, if you want to learn a magic trick …

Joost Finally Acquired, By Online Ad Network Adconion — So Joost's been put out of its misery and its assets have been acquired by Santa Monica, CA-based online ad network Adconion Media Group. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but likely would have been pennies on the dollar …

Apple iPhone Ad Succeeds Where AT&T Fails — Apple's jumping into the battle that sees Verizon Wireless and AT&T flaming each other in advertisements, but unlike AT&T's recent effort to defend itself, Apple's new pair of iPhone ads are actually good. — To recap, Verizon fired the first volley …

Yahoo's Search Box Gets Smarter — Yahoo has announced a new set of features for its Search Assist service that makes the Yahoo search box a lot smarter. — Perhaps the main innovation here is the inclusion of content and information right inside the Search Assist dropdown.

Price War Brews Between Amazon and Wal-Mart — Ali had Frazier. Coke has Pepsi. The Yankees have the Red Sox. — Now Wal-Mart, the mightiest retail giant in history, may have met its own worthy adversary: Amazon.com. — In what is emerging as one of the main story lines …

Best Buy adds $197 HP laptop to Black Friday lineup — Best Buy on Tuesday announced that it will bolster its Black Friday deals with a $197 HP laptop. — Available in-store beginning Friday, Nov. 27, the HP laptop features an Intel Celeron 900 processor, 2GB memory and a 160GB hard drive.

Negative Cashback from Bing Cashback — In a recent post that Microsoft made me take down, I wrote about some security holes in Bing Cashback. While technical flaws are somewhat interesting to me, most Bountii users don't really care about them. Starting today, I'll write about some non-technical flaws in Bing Cashback.

Major Intel chip upgrade coming to new Netbooks — Intel is set to announce the biggest makeover for its Atom processor since it was introduced back in the spring of 2008. And PC makers are ready with new Netbook models, some due before the mammoth Consumer Electronics Show in January.

E-tailers snagged in marketing ‘scam’ blame customers — First the good news for consumers: the U.S. government's investigation into how dozens of well-known online stores worked with controversial marketers to “deceive” customers out of $1.4 billion has prompted some retailers …

The mobile data apocalypse, and what it means to you — The mobile industry is now completing a huge shift in its attitude toward mobile data. Until pretty recently, the prevailing attitude among mobile operators was that data was a disappointment. It had been hyped for a decade …

Twitter eyes acquisitions, sees making money in 2010 — TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Micro-blogging site Twitter is interested in making more acquisitions as it continues to grow in popularity, co-founder Biz Stone said on Tuesday. — “That is something we are definitely interested in,” Stone told a news conference in Tel Aviv.

Precorder Enters Alpha Testing Phase — Those following the PreCentral video recording thread will know this has been a long time coming. Back before webOS 1.3.1, video recording was a pipe dream and would require a lot of work to get done in a successful, safe manner. — However, webOS 1.3.1 changed all that.

Siri raises $15.5M more for virtual personal assistant — For those of you awaiting the next generation of personal assistants, San Jose startup Siri, who's product aims to be a virtual personal assistant (VPA), has just raised $15.5 million in round two funding from Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures says VentureWire.

Hulu's New Embed Policy Can Only Hurt It — Before Hulu even had a name or its current management team, it had distribution partners: AOL, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo. — All along, one of Hulu's most distinctive and friendly features has been that all its content is embeddable.